ABSTRACTION OF INTELLECT.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Dendy, Walter Cooper
You reminded me, Astrophel, of the brilliant parody composed by Mackenzie, of the versification of Voltaire and La Fontaine, of the solution of the difficult problem by Condorcet, of the discussion of abstruse points of policy by Cabanis. You might have added Condillac, who asserts that when he was composing the “Cours d’Etudes,” he often left a chapter unfinished, but had it all in his mind when he awoke. And Franklin assures us, that he often dreamed of the issue of important events in which he was engaged, believing the vision to be the influence of inspired prophecy. Dr. Haycock, of Oxford, too, is said to have composed and preached sermons in his sleep, in despite even of buffetings.
These are not dreams, but the reveries of philosophers and poets. The faculties of perception are suspended: one only object occupies the mind, and the impression on the memory is vivid and permanent. Of this reverie I do not recollect a more interesting illustration than the “Dream of Tartini,” and its exquisite product, “La Sonata di Diavolo.” This admirable violinist and once esteemed composer, relates the following anecdote as the origin of his chef-d’œuvre, the “Devil’s Sonata.” “One night, it was in the year 1713, I dreamed that I had made over my soul to his satanic majesty. Every thing was done to my wink; the faithful menial anticipated my fondest wishes. Among other freaks, it came into my head to put the violin into his hands, for I was anxious to see whether he was capable of producing anything worth hearing upon it. Conceive my astonishment at his playing a sonata, with such dexterity and grace, as to surpass whatever the imagination can conceive. I was so much delighted, enraptured, and entranced by his performance, that I was unable to fetch another breath, and, in this state, I awoke. I jumped up and seized upon my instrument, in the hope of reproducing a portion, at least, of the unearthly harmonies I had heard in my dream.
But all in vain: the music which I composed under the inspiration, I must admit the best I have ever written, and of right I have called it the ‘Devil’s Sonata;’ but the falling off between that piece and the sonata which had laid such fast hold of my imagination is so immense, that I would rather have broken my violin into a thousand fragments, and renounced music for good and all, than, had it been possible, have been robbed of the enjoyment which the remembrance afforded me.”
In the cases of precocious children, who are said to have “lisp’d in numbers,” I do not doubt that the secret may be referred to this concentration of genius. Mozart composed a sonata at the age of four. The precocious little girl, Louisa Vinning, who was called the “Infant Sappho,” has yet eclipsed Mozart in this; that at the age of two years and eight months she sang repeatedly a melody perfectly new, and so perfect, that it was written down from her lips, and entitled, “The Infant’s Dream.” During all this, the little creature was in such a state of apparent abstraction, that it was believed by all around her that she walked and talked in her sleep.
These mental concentrations can, by some enthusiasts, be produced at pleasure. The paroxysm of the improvisatore, for instance. But it is an effort which, like the dark hour of the Caledonian seer, is not endured with impunity: it points, indeed, emphatically to the limit beyond which mind should not be strained.
The Marquis de Moschati expressed himself to us, as experiencing excitement like intoxication when he sat himself to compose, and threw his whole soul into his subject. It commenced with irregular and laborious breathing, excessive palpitations, vertigo, tinnitus aurium,—the perception of objects being lost. Then came romantic fancies, like the visions of opium, “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” At the conclusion was felt excessive exhaustion, and a state of mild catalepsy ensued for five or six days together. This excited talent, therefore, is an evanescent madness.
Cast. Another fling at poesy. Were I an improvisatrice, you would not so libel my inspiration. “Listen, lords and lady gay.” In the summer of 18—, after the Eisteddfod at Cardiff, we wandered over the hills to Caerphilly, the gigantic towers of Owain Glyndwr.
As I lay under the celebrated Hanging Tower, which is projecting eleven feet beyond its base, I reflected on the strange circumstance of the arrest of so gigantic a mass in its progress to prostration. “What,” I exclaimed, “is the power by which it is suspended?” My imagination heightened my reverie, and placed before me the image of the Destroyer, with his emblematic scythe and glass, and he answered me thus: —
“Half-dreaming mortal, listen! It is I,
Time, the destroyer, whose gigantic arm
Lifted this pond’rous ruin from its base.
Why hangs it thus, arrested in its course,
In bold defiance of attraction’s law?
Why, like its once proud lord, renown’d Glyndwr,
Sinks not its mouldering grandeur to the ground?
Behold an emblem of vitality!
A type of mortal man, of thee, of all!
Like this grey wall, thy tott’ring steps are staid,
And on a thread thy fragile life is hung;
Yet leaning, ever leaning, to the grave.
One moment more, an atom of an age,
This mould’ring ruin, trembling on its base,
May, like the marble shafts of lone Palmyra,
Be hurl’d to earth, and crumble into dust;
And, like the ruin, thou!”
And yet I was not mad.
Ev. I talk not of a gentle heart like yours, fair Castaly; but of that extreme, when ideas are received by a mind nearly exhausted, and lie for a while dormant. As sleep and fatigue wear off, and consciousness returns, these images are suddenly and brilliantly lighted up. If intense impression shall have been made on the heart or mind, intense will be the abstraction of the enthusiast. Until one thought is touched, the patient is sane; but, when the chord vibrates, then, as in the pathetic episode of Sterne’s Maria, the paroxysm is expended in a flood of tears, or in a mad fit, or in a gush of wildest music.
To the latter cause, we owe many beauties of composition. Demarini, the Italian tragedian, acted a prison-scene before Paganini, in which, with the pathos of deep distress, the victim prayed for death. The maestro retired to bed, but not to sleep; his excited brain relieved its painful sympathies by the composition of the “Adagio apassionato.”
Carl Maria Von Weber witnessed the waltzing of his wife with a gallant cavalier. He retired in a mood of jealous frenzy, and expressed the ideas which rankled in his heart by the “Invitation à la Walse.”
Astr. Well, is there not something special in all this?
Ev. Yes, truly,—a power imparted to some, withheld from others,—genius.
Astr. Yet, in explanation of this abstract reverie, the phrenologist will, I dare say, satisfy himself by merely deciding that the organ of concentrativeness is strongly developed.
Ev. It is clear, at least, that the deep interest of the subject of reflection overbalances the influence of the external senses. The impression of objects is either too slight, or rapid, to produce perception, or (in other words), however the impression may be imparted to the brain by the nerve, the brain is not sensible of it, and there is therefore no perception.
So intense indeed has been this influence, that Pliny contemplated the volcanic philosophy amidst the ashy cloud of Vesuvius by which he was destroyed. And Archimedes was so intent in solving a problem, during the siege of Syracuse, that no sense of danger impelled him to avoid the storm, or fly from the dagger of the assassin.
While Parmegiano was painting at Rome the “Vision of St. Jerome,” which now adorns the National Gallery of England, the famous siege of that city was concluded by its spoliation. Yet Parmegiano (absorbed with his painting) was unconscious of the tumult, until his studio was burst open by some of the soldiers of the enemy. A similar story is told, also, of Protogenes, when Demetrius was laying siege to Rhodes.
Cast. The flappers of Laputa would soon have dispelled this reverie.
Ev. But if they had thus flourished their official bladders, perhaps the “Principia Mathematica” had not been written; for Newton explained the extent of his discoveries by his “always thinking unto them.”
Somewhat like the effect of intense study on the mind, the muscles of the limbs will be influenced by one long-directed habit. Paganini was observed, on board a steam-boat, constantly to repose on the sofa. During this state of reverie, his left arm assumed the peculiar attitude in which he held his violin, until he saw that he was noticed, when he altered its position.
The right hand of Benjamin West, of which I saw a posthumous model at Lord de Tabley’s, appeared to have taken that form in which he was wont to hold the pencil.
By this concentration, this full possession of the mind, the wildness of fancy in the dark is often the source of terror; but this is ever lessened or dispelled by any sound or sight which presents a subject to the perceptive faculty. Such is the sudden glimmer of a light, the barking of a dog, or the almost instinctive effort of the school-boy,